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Top Lies spread by Indian Media in July 2015

Gaurav
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Top Lies spread by Indian Media in July 2015

For the benefit of the readers, we will now start classifying Media lies as “Big lies” and “Miscellaenous Lies”. “Big Lies” would ordinarily include those lies which impacted public discourse to a large extent.

Big Lies:

1. 1 July 2015: All Media: VIP Culture: Air India flight delayed by Fadnavis aide

All of MSM went crazy after Devendra Fadnavis asking for his resignation, alleging that he threw a tantrum on his flight to New York, and delayed the flight because he wanted his aide, Pardeshi too on board. The truth was evident in the email sent by the duty manager:

“When chief minister was apprised about the situation, he said, he will fly with his entire delegation. However offloading all eight passengers and their baggage in two different containers and preparing new load sheet would have delayed the flight further. And while the offloading process was on Pardeshi’s valid passport reached boarding gate.”

The email did not say anything about Fadnavis asking to be deboarded or delaying the flight. Eventually co-passengers of Fadnavis used twitter to support him and lay out the facts. They said Fadnavis was busy quietly reading a file and did not ask to be deboarded even once. Later Fadnavis too tweeted the same and promised legal action.

2. 2 July 2015: All Media – Maharashtra govt to derecognize madrassa not teaching formal subjects

Entire MSM was spreading the news that Maharashtra Government had derecognized Madrassas and would not consider them as schools. This was being played up deliberately to give it a communal angle. The fact is, the Maharshtra Government had decided that ““A child, male or female, if found studying only in religious institute which does not take government grant and does not follow formal school syllabus, will be considered uneducated and out-of-school,” as announced by Dilip Kamble, Social Justice Minister. This meant that students studying in any religious institute, be it madrassa or vedic school, would be called out of school. The decision was for all schools not teaching subjects like maths and science, but only religious subjects. However MSM reported it as if only Madrassas were affected.

3. 2 July 2015: The New Indian Express – Huge Unpaid Electricity Bills of Top Politicians 

We had a detailed post on this. Following the furore of Kejriwal’s alleged high electricity bills, TNIE decided to use some half cooked facts to show Kejriwal in better light. Firstly, TNIE claimed that Narendra Modi’s bill was of Rs 21 lakhs, but did not provide a shred of evidence to back this claim. Further, they presented electricity bills of a range of politicians, from Jaitley, to Sachin Pilot, to Rahul Gandhi, and showed how their bills “ran into lakhs of rupees”. They put up screenshots of the bills, where the total bill amount was shown, but did not put the breakup of that amount. This is important because Most of these bills which ran into lakhs, were made up of arrears of several months. If the arrears are removed, then the bill amounts for the latest month ranged from Rs 7,788 in Uma Bharti’s case to a maximum of Rs 33,471 in Jaitley’s case, both of which are much lower or comparable to Kejriwal’s bill.

4. 7 July 2015 – PTI: PM Modi likely to host Iftar party in Srinagar

As the title suggests, PTI reported that PM Modi would host an Iftar party in Srinagar. No source was mentioned for this story. On the very next day, PTI itself had a report contradicting itself. Now they claimed that PM Modi has no plans to hold an Iftar Party as per “Highly-placed sources who refuted reports”. This was an amazing case where a fake “source based” story was run and then reversed by the same agency.

5. 7 July 2015: All Media – Linking every death to VYAPAM scam

Media was trying to link each and every unnatural death in Madhya Pradesh to the VYAPAM scam, as long as even a slight link to VYAPAM was proved. We had written separately on this here.  It is important to understand that VYAPAM runs ALL professional and Government admissions in MP via exams. Hence it is highly illogical to link everybody who got through VYAPAM, to the scam. Yet, when a trainee cop, who was like thousands of others recruited via VYAPAM, committed suicide, MSM quickly added this to VYAPAM death count. Eventually NDTV reporter Gargi Rawat and some news reports clarified that the cop was mentally stressed and her death was due to other “personal reasons”. In a similar case, the death of a constable was again linked to VYAPAM, and again, Rawat clarified that his death was due to other reasons. There were 2 more deaths in recent times which were highlighted by media as “VYAPAM deaths”, which were, as at the time of writing this, not conclusively linked to VYAPAM by doctors or police.

6. 14 July 2015 – Times of India: It will take 25 years for ‘achhe din’ promised by BJP to come, Amit Shah says

We had done a separate detailed post on this. After confirmation from multiple sources such as other news reports, and even cross verifying with the audio and video tapes of Amit Shah’s speech, it was clear that Times of India had invented this entire clickbait headline and Amit Shah had never said such a  thing. In fact Shah never once mentioned “acche din” in his speech. He had said that inflation, unemployment, poverty can be eliminated in 5 years, but for India to become Vishwaguru, BJP would have to win every election from Panchayat to Parliament in the next 25 years. Times of India had blatantly lied and was exposed after the recordings of the speech were out.

7. 14 July 2015 – All Media –  Holy Child Auxilium School vandalized

This was originally a lie from February 2015, and even though there was enough evidence at that point itself to say it was a lie, in July, the police found conclusive evidence and nailed the culprits. We have added a Times of India story link as an example. On 14 July, the cops caught a 19 year old boy in connection with this “vandalisation” which was in fact only a case of theft. The boy had previously stolen from his own school too. The cops caught him based on his fingerprints and the CCTV footage. There was no vandalisation nor any communal angle to this case.

8. 16 July 2015: OneIndia.com – AAP to appoint Kejriwal’s sister Swati Maliwal as DCW chief

This unsubstantiated news was running on social media, and OneIndia.com also made it into a news report. Fact is Swati Maliwal has no relations with Arvind Kejriwal. She is AAP leader’s Naveen Jaihind’s wife, but she is not Kejriwal’s relative. This was confirmed by Arvind Kejriwal himself via the following tweets:


9. 16 July 2015: NDTV – Sewage Polluted Godavari Awaits Kumbh Devotees nashik ndtv

After being severely embarassed on Social Media, NDTV changed the above article, but you can get a hint about the old article from the URL and this screenshot. The scale of lies can be imagined when the headline changes from that, to “River is safe, no Sewage”. First, NDTV used a pic of Haridwar Ghat, as seen in screenshot, and claimed it was a pic of Godavari. Secondly, NDTV claimed that the Nashik collector and an NGO had told them that the river was polluted. This was vehemently refuted by the Municipal Commissiner of Nashik Praveen Gedam, after he personally talked to both people. He also demanded that NDTV release the audio tapes of the conversation. Later, Sonia Singh from NDTV jumped in, and after much dilly-dallying accepted that they had reported the claim made by an NGO, as a fact, and apologised for this. And all of Praveen Gedam’s claims can easily be proven, by having a look at his tweets much prior to this story. He has regularly been uploading pictures of the cleanliness work going on. And this is the final proof, of how NDTV spun this story.

10. 17 July 2015: Economic Times –  Devendra Fadnavis skips meetings in New York to see Statue of Liberty with his family

In a post on the Economic Times, columnist Seema Sirohi claimed that she had learnt from sources that Devendra Fadnavis, who was on a work related trip to New York, “blew off a whole afternoon of meetings in New York to go and see the Statue of Liberty with his family”. She backed this up with a quote from an “exasperated organiser”:

“They don’t understand — you can’t do that after appointments are made. Not for sightseeing.”

This portion of her piece was circulated by many Adarsh Liberal journalists as a damaging proof of how Fadnavis is careless. After 3 days, the Public Relations department of Fadnavis, forced Economic Times to apologize for this lie. They showed that details of all the meetings attended by Fadnavis were evident from his social media account and  can also be verified from the Consul General of India. Economic Times, on their part, posted a small apology, but not before the damage was done.

11. 24 July 2015: NDTV – Malicious Editing of Baba Ramdev’s interview

We had written a separate post on this detailing all the places where NDTV via Sreenivasan Jain maliciously edited Ramdev’s interview and twisted his statements. Jain deliberately omitted the parts where Ramdev proves his credentials to help in the Unnat Bharat programme. Further, Jain showed Baba Ramdev’s reply to his question on the alleged scams of BJP, as the reply to Jain’s question on running of the Modi Government. Ramdev had expressed satisfaction of the running of the Modi Government but Jain deliberately deleted this answer and pasted the other answer here.

12. 24 July 2015: All Media – Impotency, love affairs behind farmer suicides: Radha Mohan Singh

This sensationalist news was spread by all media, thus showing Singh’s “insensitivity” to suicides by poor farmers. The truth is, that was a cut and spliced version of his statement, shown out of context. Singh was only reading out the statistics as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB):

“According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), causes of (farmer) suicides include family problems, illness, drugs… dowry, love affairs and impotency,”

Further he also said that financial burden could also be a reason for suicides. Similar replies were also given in the past, since all ministers were only reading out the statistical data.

13. 24 July 2015: DNA – Maharashtra government may go for complete liquor ban

DNA  claimed, after the beef ban, Maharashtra government was going to go ahead with a liquor ban. They claimed that Fadnavis had mentioned this in a reply in the Legislative council. They even had a quote of him saying the same:

“We will impose the (liquor) ban across the state after studying the results of the same currently imposed in three districts in the state.”

In reality, as the DNA report itself mentions, Fadnavis was speaking about banning illicit liquor. This was in reply to a specific question by a NCP MLC on illicit liquor. The accurate story was reported by two other media outlets, Mid-Day and Asian Age. Both the reports stated the same thing, that Fadnavis had said such a ban was impractical. Fadnavis said that implementing a liquor ban would put pressure on the police department.  His exact words, as per Asian Age, were:

“The police are already working under pressure and the ban will increase their load further. Therefore, it is not possible to ban liquor in the state.”

14. 28 July 2015: Factchecker.in and other sites which published this report: Power Ministry: Series Of False Claims, Marginal Improvements

We had written a separate post on this. Factchecker.in claimed that they had debunked various claims made by the Power Ministry, but a closer examination revealed that in most cases, goal-posts were shifted and in some cases basic facts were not verified. Business Standard was one of the sites which had published this. Once they were apprised of the numerous errors, they withdrew the article and published an apology. Factchecker.in though did not seem to back down. They gave further explanations to their post, which in fact made it even more clearer that in reality they had not disputed the Power Ministry claims, but had only added some more arguments to suit their bias. However, they did later modify the headline and dropped the “false claims” portion, thus in effect admitting that they had got it wrong.

15. 31 July 2015: The New Indian Express or Mid-day – Yakub Memon’s last words

This is a rare case where no-one can verify what the truth is. The New Indian Express claimed that ““I accept my guilt. May Allah forgive me” were Memon’s last words, and printed this on their front page in bold. However a far more detailed report on Mid-day claimed the exact opposite. They said Memon kept saying “Main begunah hoon (I am innocent). This is injustice” and at no stage accepted his guilt. Obviously one of them is wrong but there will never be a way to find out which one of them was wrong.

Miscellaneous Lies:

1. 9 July 2015: Indian Express – Decriminalization of Defamation Writ Petition filed by Rahul Gandhi

By cleverly laying around with words, Indian Express tried to show that Rahul Gandhi had filed a Writ Petition on de-decriminalization of defamation. The report said, “The court is hearing a clutch of petitions filed separately by political leaders like Rahul Gandhi, Subramanian Swamy and Arvind Kejriwal,”. With Rahul Gandhi’s name at the forefront, one would assume he is the leader of this cause, but in fact Subramanian Swamy was the first to file this writ petition, with others like Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, impleading. This was clarified by Swamy via a tweet. 

2. 10 July 2015 –  Times of India: Confederate flag is a symbol of my heritage – Bobby Jindal

Times of India printed this as a quote of Bobby Jindal in all their editions. Actually Bobby Jindal never said such a thing. Times of India got this quote from a story on a site which publishes only fake news under satire.

3. 10 July 2015 –  Times of India: Delhi too hot? 56 IAS officers opt for states, just 4 come to Centre

Times of India ran this story saying that most IAS officers are unhappy with the Central Government over issues like amount of hard work required, and hence were moving back to their states. This spin was given inspite of incuding a quite from a top official that such movement may not indicated unwillingness to work with centre:

“It may have been to take up assignments at senior levels, including as chief secretary, in the state”

Finally the Twitter handle of the IAS Association tweeted back to Times Now handle claiming that the story was baseless and that they should check their facts.

Soon another IAS officer joined the chorus and claimed that they were having “fun” and the Times of India story was “dumb”.

4. 16 July 2015 –  NDTV – “Breaking and Exclusive” Sudhir Sharma mining baron financier of BJP in MP

The “Lies” portion here would be the touting of this story as a “Breaking and Exclusive” by NDTV and Barkha Dutt. Dutt, repeatedly tweeted that she had accessed some tax reports from 2013 which proved Sudhir Sharma, who was involved in VYAPAM, had financed BJP. And this, she claimed was a “Breaking & Exclusive” story. Fact is, this story was broken by Indian Express a whole year before Barkha even noticed it. Such unnecessary hyping of an old story served only to sensationalize a piece of evidence which was already public and in all probability, also examined by the probe team. 

5. 18 July 2015: Indian Express – Using File photo for a current tragedy of a collapsed building in Delhi.

on 18 July, according the screenshot attached above, Indian Express tweeted at 10.53pm, about a building which had collapsed in West Delhi, at around 9pm on the same day. In the tweet, they included a pic of collapsed builidng, but the pic was taken in broad daylight. This made it clear that they had used a stock image to portray a breaking incident, thereby misleading readers about the intensity of the incident. After being rebuked by journalist Shiv Aroor, the tweet was deleted. 

6. 18 July 2015: NewsX – Claiming a pic from a Pakistani rally is a pic from a protest in Kashmir.

We had tweeted about this here. NewsX tweeted a piece captioned “Protests emerge after Eid prayers in Kashmir” and attached a pic of hundreds of people protesting with many waving Pakistani flags. This picture was in fact from a protest in Pakistan. Using this pic, for a protest in Kashmir, gave readers the impression that a protest of that scale and intensity was happening in Kashmir, that too on Eid. This was highly misleading and stoking communal tension unnecessarily. The tweet was later deleted by NewsX

7. 20 July 2015: Outlook – Bibek Debroy slammed UNICEF’s millennium development goals

Outlook made the above claim, and then proceeded to attack the “Gujarat Model”, Debroy, and the Government over this stance. Outraged by this false news, Debroy tweeted out the facts. He firstly clarified that Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are not of UNICEF. And secondly, he was talking about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are set to replace MDGs soon. 

8. 21 July 2015: PTI – Compulsory yoga for CBSE students

Similar news reports based on PTI reports can be found in almost all media outlets. From the reported headline, it appears as if each CBSE student would have to compulsorily do Yoga. The report further says: “Yoga has been made compulsory in CBSE curricula for Classes XI and XII while for students of other classes it should be held “at least” twice a week as part of their physical activity programme”. But In the article itself, the truth is mentioned, as a quote of AYUSH Minister Sripad Naik:

“…and that students of Classes XI-XII should participate in physical activity/ games/mass physical training/yoga for at least two periods per week (90-120 minutes/ week)”

From the above its clear that Yoga has been added to the physical activities and any of these activities must be done for at least 2 periods every week, and not only Yoga.

9. 28 July 2015: MailToday – Attributed a quote by a fake account to PM Narendra Modi 

UntitledIn their print edition, MailToday carried a “quote” of Narendra Modi, as saying: “No Sikh wants Terrorism, visit Punjab no one wants Khalistan, they want to get rid of “Corrupt” Badal Govt.” .  raised this issue on Twitter that the said quote was never said by Modi. It was then that managing editor of MailToday, Abhijit Majumder admitted that they had goofed up. As per the explanation given, they “mistakenly took the tweet from a fake account” and attributed it to Modi. Eventually MailToday tweeted an apology for the error 

10. 28 July 2015: Firstpost  / Indian Express– Attributing quotes of  Arnot Sheppard, Adolf Hitler and John F Kennedy to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam

As pointed out by many on twitter, Firstpost wrongly attributed the quotes of the afore mentioned people to Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. Some examples are:

“If you want to leave footprints in the sands of time, don’t drag your feet”, originally said by Arnot Sheppard, attributed to Dr Kalam. 

“if you want to shine like sun first you have to burn like it”, a quote of Hitler.

“All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talents”, quote by John F Kennedy

Both the sites eventually removed the above quotes after being educated by readers.

11. 29 July 2015: Times of India – Pakistan is subservient to ISIS, India is a target of ISIS – KPS Gill

Times of India published an interview with former top cop KPS Gill, on the backdrop of Gurdaspur terror attacks. In the interview, Mr Gill was quoted as saying:

Untitled

On being asked by a twitter user Editor of India Today Shiv Aroor checked with Mr Gill and confirmed that Mr Gill had in fact referred to ISI and not ISIS and that the Times of India interview was misquoting him. 

12. 30 July 2015: Times of India – BJP welcomes SC verdict, says those opposed are ‘mentally challenged’

The false portion in this news piece is the “mentally challenged” portion. Times of India uses a sensational headline and claims BJP says those opposed to SC verdict are “mentally challenged”. In the body of the article though, statements of BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma. national spokesperson Nalin Kohli and of spokesman Sambit Patra are given in quotes. The words “mentally challenged” do not appear in any of the quoted statements of these three people. Yet Times of India has imagined that at least one of them has said it and hence manipulated the headline.

January 2015: 7 Lies

February 2015: 8 Lies

March 2015: 9 Lies

April 2015: 18 Lies

May 2015: 20 Lies

June 2015: 20 Lies

Dear media, don’t misreport, misrepresent and communalize Yakub Memon

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Dear media, don’t misreport, misrepresent and communalize Yakub Memon

Many things have been said in the last few days about the hanging of the 1993 Mumbai bombings convict Yakub Memon. Divisions in India’s society have been thrown out into the open and the last straw was when media reports published pictures showing thousands at Memon’s funeral. This was perhaps the first time in Free India’s history that a hanged convict was being given a tearful farewell by thousands, and ideologues have jumped to conclude hideous ideas about India and its society.

Crowd gathered to receive the dead body of Yakub Memon
Crowd gathered to receive the dead body of Yakub Memon

It’s important to know what the Yakub Memon debate truly is about. It all started when a leading media house published an article written by B Raman, the former counter-terrorism head of RAW who had overseen the operation to capture Memon. Raman, in his article, had explained why he thought Memon shouldn’t be hanged, pointing out that Memon had in fact mulled over surrendering to Indian authorities and on capture, had even asked his family members holed up in Pakistan to turn themselves in. Naturally, Raman’s article evoked much interest in the public. Many wondered if the man who nabbed Memon believed that the latter was innocent. Sections of the media, for one, did make it seem that way and many who turned up for Memon’s funeral on Thursday likely thought so too. Even educated citizens, regardless of religion, were misled by the representation of Raman’s views by sections of the media.

Some journalists went so far as to juxtapose the debate on the death penalty with the one on Yakub Memon. In the process, several people were ostracized for speaking in favor of abolishing the death penalty, regardless of whether they thought Yakub Memon was innocent or not. It seems strange that one can’t consider the fact that many of these commentators were simply calling for a debate on removing the death penalty from India’s law books, while simultaneously believing that India must be tough on terror.

What is most unfortunate about the misled debate on this issue is the communalization of it all. As it turns out, fundamentalists in both religious communities have misused the discourse to show that all Muslims were hurt by the hanging of Yakub Memon, or that Yakub Memon was innocent and wronged. Neither is true. The Indian Muslim community does not sympathize with terrorists (Muslims in Mumbai pointedly refused to bury the body of Ajmal Kasab in their graveyard), nor do they believe that they are under attack by the Hindu community, as is being insinuated by some fundamentalists.

Yes, thousands turned up for the funeral, but it is well possible that most of them were brainwashed by the misreporting and misrepresentation of facts into believing that Memon was wrongly hanged, even if he wasn’t entirely innocent. In fact, given the several misleading media reports that one has been reading over the last few days, such a conclusion doesn’t seem absurd at all. To generalize such pictures and in fact question the nationalistic character of India’s Muslims is preposterous.

Media houses inciting people to communalize the event
Media houses inciting people to communalize the event

As for Yakub Memon himself, he was found guilty by the judiciary after due process of law, and hanged. Memon was given a completely fair trial for over two decades. His mercy plea was heard by both the President and multiple benches of the Supreme Court multiple times. In fact, the Supreme Court opened its doors at 2 am for the first time in history in order to consider his plea for clemency one last time. To insinuate that Memon was wronged under the law is therefore ridiculous.

India has executed only 4 people in the last 15 years and the Supreme Court upholds less than 5% of death sentences that come to it on appeal (certainly, many Muslims have had their death sentences commuted too). The fact that the same system, after all due processes of law, decided after multiple considerations that Memon must be hanged clearly suggests that there was no illegality or arbitrariness.

As for Raman’s view on the case, the former RAW official never held that Memon was innocent. His version merely suggested that should India have dealt less harshly with Memon, the RAW might have succeeded in luring other terrorists from out of the ISI’s clutches (Raman noted that Memon was attempting to flee from the ISI). This might have been a strategic move, but strategy isn’t the domain of the judiciary; courts decide upon a case based on its merits and based on existing law.

A sensitive issue such as this needs to be dealt with responsibly by those of us in the media. Misreporting and misrepresentation causes much harm to society and provides ammunition for sinister elements looking to divide India for political gain. The Memon issue, in that sense, is a lesson to be learnt.

by Mohamed Zeeshan

Meet Gaurang Damani – a socially conscious Mumbaikar who initiated King’s Circle station cleaning

Ullas
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Meet Gaurang Damani – a socially conscious Mumbaikar who initiated King’s Circle station cleaning

Ever since the “Swachch Bharat Abhiyaan” was initiated by the Prime Minister, there have been many initiatives at the local level, where people have been trying to make a difference – a positive one. In one of our previous stories, we had published an interview with Temsutula Imsong – who is working on cleaning the Prabhughat in Varanasi. In this post, we would like to introduce you to Gaurang Damani – an Electronics engineer from Mumbai. He is an active BJP member and has set up an NGO “Die Hard Indian” in 2000. Since then he has been involved in many cleaning up and renovation initiatives.

OpIndia.com got an opportunity to have a written interview with Gaurang to know about him and his activities.

1. Many of us have not heard about you or your work. Can you please introduce yourself?

I am 43 years old Mumbaikar, staying with parents and wife, Jayshree and 2 children Ria and Shlok. I am an Electronics Engineer from Mumbai University and was ranked 7th (1993). I have worked with Tata Unisys and UB group. However, I am self-employed since 1997. My work took me to USA in 1994, where I lived till my return in 2002.

2. Since when have you/your organization been involved in these activities?

I started diehardindian.com in Feb 2000 and returned to India in 2002, as I had the urge to contribute back to society. Our email monthly newsletter now goes out to over 7,000 local residents. diehardindian.com gets over 300,000 unique visitors every year – it functions to provide information to citizens on various government-related interactions, thus reducing the chances of corruption. I would like to believe that www.diehardindian.com is India’s first eGovernance website.

I have also shown interest in many civic activities. For instance, I was a co-organizer of rallies in support of Anna Hazare’s “India Against Corruption” movement in Matunga (1,500 and 400 attendance).

3. There are many issues that are troubling in Mumbai. What made you choose the King’s Circle railway station as your project for cleaning?

I have taken up several other civic issues in the past like the beautification of Maheshwari Udyan (with MMRDA, 2011), beautification of area under Sion circle flyover (with MSRDC, 2013), several tree plantation drives (with BMC) and so on. I have also won a PIL against BMC in the Bombay High court for shifting of 55 garbage trucks and its chowky from a residential area and got over 6000 pledges from local area school and college students (since 2010) that they will keep their surroundings clean and show respect for the environment clean.

I was also writing to and interacting with Central Railways for getting King’s Circle station cleaned (as it was very dirty). Mr George Eapen (Officer from CR) called me asking me to take the cleaning up task (instead of writing complaints). And hence I took it up as a challenge. Of course, the other factor was that the station was local and was part of my network.

4. You must have faced many challenges. Can you list some of them? What kept you moving during tough times?

At the station, the challenge or frustration was to see stuff like flower pots stolen, people tearing informational posters, people spitting on painted walls and so on. But one of our donors told me a very nice thing – that be mentally prepared for 10% damages and be physically prepared to re-do that part of the work. This advice has helped me in managing my frustrations to a large extent.

5. Have you seen change in behavior of Mumbaikars in the way they maintain cleanliness at King’s Circle station, after your project?

Yes, King’s Circle station is much cleaner now – I see a lot more people throwing garbage in the dustbins that we have provided. Fewer people urinate at the station premises (as we have painted a lot of the walls, which has also greatly reduced the instances of people spitting on the wall). One thing I did notice was that people spit on painted walls, but generally do not spit on walls which have some art on it.

Of course, we also do have a cleaning staff who sweeps everyday!

6. Did you approach any local politicians or corporate houses for help? How did they respond to your call?

For the King’s Circle station, luckily I did not have to approach any corporate house. Through the diehardindian.com network, we had over 550+ volunteers giving their time and a lot of donors contributing financially (mostly in kind). Only because of the donors and volunteers help, this project succeeded (they are all listed in this youtube video at the end).

Our local Shiv Sena Member of Parliament (MP) Shri Rahul Shewale ji, nominated me for the DRUCC (Divisional Railway User’s Consultative Committee) membership in June 2015. So that has helped me monitoring changes on a regular basis.

7. Did you face hurdles in getting approvals from the Railways? How did they help you?

Railways authorities have been of tremendous help, right from giving the permission to day-to-day coordination. For instance, for increasing the safety of commuters, we got 30 street lights installed/ started, out of which Railways installed 10 street lights and BEST provided for about 15 lights.

We also got good help from our local BMC ward office, for disposing a few trucks full of debris.

8. Now that the first step has been made, how do you plan to maintain the cleanliness of the station? 

We did not want this to be a one-off one-day cleanliness event. The station is already being maintained on a daily basis, since December 2014. We have permission to do this till December 2015.

9. There must be many interesting incidences during the cleaning project. Please share some of those with us?

When commuters saw school children painting walls or grills, they would stop and help. Some of our volunteers were just local commuters who saw the changes evolving and were motivated to join in.

10. What are your next projects?

Both  Central and Western Railways has requested for us to take up another station. So based on our volunteers availability, we may take up another nearby station.

11. How would you like other interested people to join your mission?

Please take up a project in your local area. You can start with a small project and complete it. That way you will get people more involved. Government officials will help you, if they see your good intentions, but you have to be very persistent.

Do not worry about the funding – there are many donors wanting to fund good honest problem-solvers.

Let us try our best to make our India – a Swachh Bharat!

OpIndia.com asked Gaurang to share some of the before/after photos for our readers. We have premission to have them here.

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PS: We first read about Gaurang’s work here

An open letter by a cop to those opposing death penalty to Yakub

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An open letter by a cop to those opposing death penalty to Yakub

Dear “Intelligentsia” of India,

I am not a TV panelist. I am not a “human rights” activist. I am not a lawyer. I am not a political commentator. I am not a best-selling author. I am not the son or  grandson of a famous man. I am an aam aadmi. More than an aam aadmi, I am an officer in the Indian Police force. And I am writing this letter to all of you, after seeing your robust defence of a terrorist.

Why I mention who I am is important because unlike all of you, I don’t sit in plush AC offices and write editorials seeking clemency for a murderer. Nor do I visit TV studios and shout myself hoarse. Instead I meet such killers every single day. But I don’t meet them for cocktail parties or at press conferences (like some of you do).

I meet them on the road, in the streets, with weapons in their arms and hate in their eyes. I have been in situations with them where they would not hesitate a single moment before pulling the trigger on me, but I have to consider all the ramifications like “human rights”, “due process” and “fake encounter” before I save my life and of the innocent people around me.

Given the above I believe I am in a far better position to comment on a mass murderer like Yakub Memon than any of you are.

To defend this criminal, multitudes of arguments have been put forth by what are now called “Adarsh Liberals” in our society. Luckily, almost no one has pleaded that he is innocent. The situation is such that Indians have to be grateful to our “Intelligentsia” for such small mercies.

But one common hypothesis put forward by many is that Yakub Memon surrendered to the Indian authorities, and then cooperated with the investigations. Plain lies. Late B Raman, one of India’s finest intelligence officers wrote this in his article:

He had come to Kathmandu secretly from Karachi to consult a relative and a lawyer on the advisability of some members of the Memon family, including himself, who felt uncomfortable with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, returning to India and surrendering to the Mumbai police. The relative and the lawyer advised him against surrender due to a fear that justice might not be done to them. They advised Yakub to go back to Karachi.

Before he could board the flight to Karachi, he was picked up by the Nepal police on suspicion, identified and rapidly moved to India.

This was yesterday confirmed on some news channels when they interviewed the Nepali police officer. He re-iterated that there was no deal and Yakub was fleeing to Karachi. Then why are our “Intelligentsia” hell bent on stating otherwise?

Let me put it another way: I know there is a rat in my house, and I place a laddoo in a trap. The rat gets caught and then pleads for mercy saying that he had come to “surrender” because I had offered him a “laddoo” (deal). Do I let him live?

The second common argument is “but we are against death penalty. It is barbaric”. My simple question is: Did it take the death sentence of a terrorist to wake up the bleeding heart activists? Couldn’t you demand a change in law for so many years? Why are you crying for this beast?

For the record even I am not decided on this issue. Just because we are from the police force doesn’t mean we do not value human life. But in the case of a terrorist, what choice do we have? Do we preserve him hoping he will reform? Can terrorists who come with guns in their hands and an unshakable belief that what they are doing (killing innocent people) is right, be ever reformed?

Forget reformation, keeping such a dastardly mind alive is a big security risk too. Every time he is shifted from jails we have to be our toes to see if any attempt will be made by his gang members to either kill him, so that he is silenced or rescue him, so that he can continue his activities. And there is always the risk that one fine day his friends will hold some innocent civilians hostage and demand his release, so that we can put our lives at risk all over again to re-capture him.

You want to abolish death penalty? Go ahead, but not for terrorists.

Some of our “intelligentsia” have been crying that “due processes of law” have not been followed in this case. It is a shame that a case which is going for 2 decades, which has been debated at multiple levels of the judiciary, even at the highest level, is still subjected to scrutiny by mis-informed, half-read, cretins sitting in AC cabins and reading op-eds. If you did have a problem with the process, why did you not raise your voice in 2013 when he was sentenced to death? Why now when his death is imminent? Are these delaying tactics? Where do your loyalties lie dear “Intelligentsia”? I sincerely hope all these people are tried for contempt of court.

And finally there are some utter lowlifes who have given this entire thing a political, communal and even casteist colour. How can one party whichever it may be, be held responsible for a Supreme Court verdict, which has taken 2 decades and during which time multiple political parties have fought in courts against Yakub Memon? Do you have even an iota of conscience and rationality left in you when you make such absurdly illogical statements to defend a terrorist?

In the aftermath of the Gurdaspur attacks, it has been reported that now India may be a target of the ISIS. In such situations Indians must unite and fight such a huge demon. But given how our “Intelligentsia” are hell bent in sowing seeds of discord among us, I fear we will be easy targets for such groups. While we keep shouting Hindu-Muslim, Brahmin-Dalit, BJP-Congress, I fear these terrorists will rip my poor country apart.

– A “thulla”

(The author’s identity has been withheld on request of the author)

Moneylife – fighting a lone battle against NSE, with no support from media

Ullas
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Moneylife – fighting a lone battle against NSE, with no support from media

Readers of OpIndia.com are aware of the lies and spins propagated by the mainstream media to support their ideologies and/or political parties. A section of media has a cosy club and we know them as the Lutyens club; this just being an euphemism for a “newstrader” or a “presstitute“. If any member of this group is shown the mirror, their comrades jump into defend them – however absurd the charge may be. However, one news organization, which does not seem to belong to this club is – Moneylife.

Moneylife magazine published a copy of the letter it received from one of its patrons from Singapore about potential issues in “algorithmic trading” at the National Stock Exchange, the NSE (this letter was originally written to SEBI). You can read the letter here. Moneylife’s founder Sucheta Dalal wrote a piece with the title “Blowing the Whistle on Manipulation in NSE“, where this issue was highlighted. Algorithmic trading is a pre-defined software based trading strategy, where a tool analyses market dynamics, processes the information and deploys trading bets in stocks and/or in indices. This leads to sudden changes in dynamics in a counter, where unexpected liquidity can lead to increased volatility. Algorithmic trading, per se, is a well established practice across the world. However, in this case, the whistleblower alleged NSE of “market manipulation, which allowed certain vested brokers to get market price information ahead of the rest of the market”.

Following this story, the good people at NSE were clearly shaken by how a small magazine can question their credibility. NSE promptly slapped a Rs 100 cr defamation lawsuit against Moneylife magazine. Luckily for Moneylife, the Bombay High Court chided NSE by saying “NSE cannot use defamation to gag the press. How is it defamation when Ms Dalal sent you questions before publishing the article and you (NSE) chose not to respond to the query?” Moneylife has also agreed not to republish the report till the verdict is out. As per news on social media, Subramaniam Swamy has agreed to fight for Moneylife in this case.

There are two areas of concern in this case. Firstly, NSE’s high-handedness and secondly, mainstream media leaving Moneylife to fend for itself.

NSE has been notorious in silencing writers when something negative is written on them – through lawsuits or through sheer force. Here is another example. In November 2014, mumbaiwalla.com had written a piece on how NSE bullied big media houses like Economic Times and Mint to drop their stories on BSE complaining to SEBI about NSE’s malpractice. In this piece, NSE’s Divya Malik Lahiri accepted that NSE forced Mint to drop the story against NSE and at the same time, threatened mumbaiwalla to take down the story or face legal consequences. In that instance too, Sucheta Dalal questioned Mint editor Sukumar Ranganathan about the dropping of story. He accepted that Mint had dropped the story, but was not convincing in the reasons for doing so. Interestingly, there was also a historical link to this – Ira Dugal, who headed the Mumbai bureau of Mint and Divya Malik Lahiri, who was NSE spokeswoman – both broke their bread together at NDTV, earlier in their career. Whatever the background, it was evident that NSE’s high-handed approach had worked and Mint had removed the story.

One may wonder why NSE has to resort to these legal fights. One easy answer is that they are mighty scared of skeletons falling out of their cupboard, if they acknowledge something is amiss. However, let us not get carried away. Another answer to this may be its “brand value”. NSE is certainly the biggest bourse in India in terms of turnover and it also has many trading products to its credit. However, as Times rightly says, they lag behind the BSE’s “Sensex” in terms of brand value. So, any negative story will hurt their credibility further and hence, NSE tries to silence voices that question. It is time for NSE to “decline politely” or “rubbish allegations” or “clarify later”- than to be in news for wrong reasons.

Now, let us see the list of mainstream journalists who have expressed support to Moneylife in its fight against NSE – after all, this is about “free press” – a favorite subject for the liberal media. If you are expecting an exhaustive list, you are in for a surprise. Sucheta Dalal herself tweeted that she hasn’t received any support whatsoever from her colleagues.

She also gives the reason why she may not be getting that support in the near future:

It is not that this Gang of 37 do not meddle in others’ affairs – even in vain. Here is an example:

When Rajdeep Sardesai showed his bravado at the Madison Square Garden, Shekhar Gupta was out of the blocks in a flash.

Any apology for this tweet, when truth came out? You must be kidding…

Now we do not wish to reproduce all the tweets where MSM has come out in support of one of their own. However, as folks who look up to free and honest media for our news, we would be delighted to see the journalistic fraternity and others come out in support of Moneylife magazine in its fight against NSE. Our journalists and other eminent personalities are quick to stand up even if some celebrities are trolled by abusive handles, yet when a media organization is facing a Rs 100 crore lawsuit, no one comes ahead!

Mind you! We are NOT for a moment saying that Moneylife cannot fight its battles and Moneylife has NOT sought our help either. We think it is only appropriate to support honest and true journalism. If anyone of you think, Moneylife does not deserve OpIndia’s support, do let us know. We will consider your views.

Fact-Checking the “facts” of FactChecker.in – Power Ministry claims

Gaurav
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Fact-Checking the “facts” of FactChecker.in – Power Ministry claims

Recently a site called factchecker.in took up a noble initiative: to fact check the claims of the Government. It is always a good thing to verify things said by Governments and Politicians. And although such sites were missing for a long time, its at least a start that they have sprung up now. But when one gets too obsessed with proving someone wrong, facts take a backseat and opinions start masquerading as facts. This is easily visible in the series of posts put up by factchecker.in.

Let us look at their post with the sensational title: “Power Ministry: Series Of False Claims, Marginal Improvements”. Looking at the title one would assume power ministry has got it all wrong. Let us have a closer look.

1. Claim by Power Ministry: 22,566 megawatts (MW) in power-generation capacity added in 14-15, the “highest-ever growth in a single year”

Here factchecker.in resorts to some clever-by-half methods of twisting data. From the ministry’s claim, it would be clear to anyone that 22566 MW added is the highest annual addition ever i.e. highest ever growth in power-generation capacity. This is brought out by the table put up by factchecker.in as well. Column 2, which shows the annual addition, shows that the highest addition was in 2014-15, thus “highest ever growth” of power generation capacity was in 2014-15.UntitledBut they somehow wanted to prove these claims wrong, hence they added another “parameter”. Hence they added the last column, which talks about “increase/decrease in addition” i.e. “growth of growth”. No analysis usually talks about “growth of growth”. Neither does the Government claim talk about this. Yet, they use this invented parameter of “growth of growth” to counter the basic claim. This inspite of the fact that their own table very clearly says, in column 2, that the highest ever growth was in 2014-15. Shifting of goal-posts, but not very cleverly.

2. Claim by Power Ministry: 1 trillion units of electricity were generated last year; first time in history

Here, the site says “Reality: it required only an additional 33 billion units, or 3.4%, to touch the trillion-unit mark”. So the site admits that the claim that 1 trillion units were generated is true. So what is the “fact-check” here? The Government’s claim is true. The only argument factchecker.in has is to reach 1 trillion units, only 33 billion units were needed. A truly lame fact-check.

3. Claim by Power Ministry: “Deficit reduced to 3.6%, “the lowest ever””.

Here, the following table is presented by factchecker.in:factchecker

A cursory glance at this table itself shows that the deficit percentage is in fact the lowest in 2014-15. The second last last column of the table reflects deficit in absolute terms and the last column talks about deficit in percentage terms. In both the columns, the lowest figures for absolute and percentage deficit appear for 2014-15. So does the site itself say that the Government’s claim is true? Nope.

It then says the “Reality” is that the decrease in deficit compared to the earlier year is marginal. Maybe the author lost track of the original claim and let his biases creep in here, because the claim was never for “greatest reduction of deficit” but was for “lowest deficit ever”, which has been proved by the table given by them itself.

4. Claim by Power Ministry: A “significant increase” in wind-energy capacity installed during 2014-15.

The ministry says 2,312 MW wind-energy capacity was installed during 2014-15, compared to 2,083 MW during 2013-14, and terms it a “significant increase”. Note that the ministry is not saying that its the “highest ever” increase, it only says “significant”. Here the “Reality” as per factchecker.in is “ Higher capacities were installed” in earlier years. Shifting goalposts again? Government doesn’t stake claim for “highest increase”, it only asserts that there has been a significant increase. But factchecker.in shifts the argument to “highest ever increase”. Why? We are not sure.

5. Claim by Power Ministry: “Significant increase” in small hydro projects

Similar to the above, the ministry says 251 MW capacity in small hydro projects was installed during 2014-15 compared to 171 MW during 2013-14, and terms this a “significant increase”. Once again, goal-posts are shifted and factchecker.in claims that comparable or higher capacities were installed in earlier years. Again, the ministry has staked claim only to a “significant increase” not “highest ever increase” but factchecker.in doesn’t have time for such small facts. To further prove its point, the site produces the following table:

Untitled

And this table further weakens the stand of factchecker.in. If you observe, you will realize capacity added has steadily fallen from 2011-12 to 2013-14. In fact capacity has fallen by 51% from the peak figure of 352 MW in 2011-12. Thus every year, there has been a “significant decrease”. It is only in 2014-15 that this trend is broken and we see an increase. In fact the increase is a whopping 47% as compared to the 2013-14 figure. Not only is this the first increase in 4 years, it is also a “significant increase”. But factchecker.in fails to notice this.

6. Claim by Power Ministry: Four-year record in coal production

Factchecker.in here says, the ministry has claimed that there has been an increase of 32 million tonnes (MT) in 2014-15 taking the output to 494 MT in 2014-15, compared to 462 MT in 2013-14. This the ministry says is an  “increase higher than increase in previous 4 years”.

Here factchecker.in says: “The production figure of 462 MT during 2013-14 does not match data tabled by the current Coal Minister in Parliament on July 17, 2014. That data puts coal production during 2013-14 at 566 MT and not 462 MT. More significantly, coal production of 494 MT in 2014-15 is less than the coal production during each of the previous five years (2009-10 to 2013-14)”

This is the “most egregious fact check” where perhaps out of frustration at not having been able to prove a single fact wrong, wrong facts are being presented. The article confuses the output of Coal India Ltd. (CIL) with the output of Coal Industry and comes out with absurd conclusions. The data tabled by the minister obviously does not tally with the data in the claim, because the data tabled i.e. 566 MT was for”total domestic production” of coal, while the data in the claim i.e. 462 MT is production of Coal India only. This can be easily verified by checking this news article which says Coal India’s production was 462 MT in 2013-14.

Coal India’s production for 2014-15 is indeed 494 MT as evidenced by this report. From such publicly available data, we can tabulate Coal India’s production for 5 years.

YearCoal India Production in MTIncrease
2010-11431.32
2011-12435.844.52
2012-13452.2016.36
2013-14462.4110.21
2014-15494.2331.82

(2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15)

As you can see from above, the increase for the first 4 years combined is 31.09 MT and the increase in just 1 year from 2013-14 to 2014-15 is 31.82. Thus the ministry’s claim that the 32 MT increase is “higher than increase in previous 4 years” is absolutely correct. Yet factchecker.in arrived at a different conclusion.

Thus all the 6 claims of the ministry which were “debunked” by factchecker.in stand true and the “debunking” done by factchecker.in is found wanting in logic, data and reasoning. The site has done similar exercises on the claims of other ministries too. We will soon analyse the same and see if those rebuttals too are found to be illogical.

Update: This report of factchecker.in was published by Business Standard on 25th July. Today they have published an apology with a rebuttal from the power ministry which is in line with our objections above.

Last day of APJ Abdul Kalam – He went away teaching all of us

OpIndia Staff
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Last day of APJ Abdul Kalam – He went away teaching all of us

Last night, one of India’s most respected and loved personalities, Former President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam passed away in IIM Shillong. He was there to deliver a lecture on ‘Livable Planet’ but collapsed 5 minutes into his speech. Dr Kalam’s life has been an inspiration to so many Indians. Even on his last day, he exemplified all that he stood for. This is brought out by a Facebook post written by his Advsior and close associate Srijan Pal Singh.

We bring you some excerpts of the same.

Singh describes their long journey to Shillong to deliver a lecture at the IIM, and reveals how a 83 year old man was always passionate and ready to go to far-flung areas in order to speak to young minds. No amount of hardships or ‘fear’ would deter Mr. Kalam from sharing his views with young minds:

Our day, 27th July, began at 12 noon, when we took our seats in the flight to Guwahati. Dr. Kalam was (on seat) 1A and I was (on) IC. He was wearing a dark colored “Kalam suit”, and I started off complimenting, “Nice color!” Little did I know this was going to be the last color I will see on him. Long, 2.5 hours of flying in the monsoon weather. I hate turbulence, and he had mastered over them. Whenever he would see me go cold in shaking plane, he would just pull down the window pane and saw, “Now you don’t see any fear!”. That was followed by another 2.5 hours of car drive to IIM Shillong. For these two legged trip of five hours we talked, discussed and debated. These were amongst hundreds of the long flights and longer drives we have been together over the last six years.

Though focused on his mission, Dr Kalam’s thoughts were also with the brave jawans of India who fought for our safety as there was a terror attack going on in Punjab on the same day. He was also concerned about terrorism as something which could destroy humanity. Although he was known as the “missile man” and journalists like Sagarika Ghose had labelled him “Bomb Daddy“, the man always pined for peace in the world.

First, Dr. Kalam was absolutely worried about the attacks in Punjab. The loss of innocent lives left him filled with sorrow. The topic of lecture at IIM Shillong was Creating a Livable Planet Earth. He related the incident to the topic and said, “it seems the man made forces are as big a threat to the livability of earth as pollution”. We discussed on how, if this trend of violence, pollution and reckless human action continues we will forced to leave earth. “Thirty years, at this rate, maybe”, he said. “You guys must do something about it… it is going to be your future world”

Perhaps this is the last wish of Dr. Kalam – the young Indians have to take control and make sure this earth is a livable and peaceful place.

Kalam was also worried about the way Parliament was not functioning. But his approach was positive – to look out for solutions. But it appears that our politicians had made it tough even for Dr. Kalam. He didn’t have a ready solution.

Our second discussion was more national. For the past two days, Dr. Kalam was worried that time and again Parliament, the supreme institution of democracy, was dysfunctional. He said, “I have seen two different governments in my tenure. I have seen more after that. This disruption just keeps happening. It is not right. I really need to find out a way to ensure that the parliament works on developmental politics.” He then asked me to prepare a surprise assignment question for the students at IIM Shillong, which he would give them only at the end of the lecture. He wanted to them to suggest three innovative ways to make the Parliament more productive and vibrant. Then, after a while he returned on it. “But how can ask them to give solutions if I don’t have any myself”. For the next one hour, we thwarted options after options, who come up with his recommendation over the issue. We wanted to include this discussion in our upcoming book, Advantage India.

Clearly, our politicians can pay a tribute to this great son of India by making the parliament function at least for a week. He wanted to see this. Are our lawmakers listening?

Not sure of our lawmakers, but Kalam surely was watching and listening to everything and everyone around him. In his post, Singh recounts how Kalam couldn’t help but notice ‘discomfort’ being caused to a security person.

Third, was an experience from the beauty of his humility. We were in a convoy of 6-7 cars. Dr. Kalam and I were in the second car. Ahead us was an open gypsy with three soldiers in it. Two of them were sitting on either side and one lean guy was standing atop, holding his gun. One hour into the road journey, Dr. Kalam said, “Why is he standing? He will get tired. This is like punishment. Can you ask a wireless message to given that he may sit?” I had to convince him, he has been probably instructed to keep standing for better security. He did not relent. We tried radio messaging, that did not work. For the next 1.5 hours of the journey, he reminded me thrice to see if I can hand signal him to sit down. Finally, realizing there is little we can do – he told me, “I want to meet him and thank him”. Later, when we landed in IIM Shillong, I went inquiring through security people and got hold of the standing guy. I took him inside and Dr. Kalam greeted him. He shook his hand, said thank you buddy. “Are you tired? Would you like something to eat? I am sorry you had to stand so long because of me”. The young lean guard, draped in black cloth, was surprised at the treatment. He lost words, just said, “Sir, aap ke liye to 6 ghante bhi khade rahenge”.

This episode demonstrated that in spite of being such a highly placed dignitary, he was humble to the core. How many individuals at his level can claim to have similar empathy for people far below them in social ranks?

The Facebook post by Singh also tells us that Dr. Kalam wanted to be remembered as a ‘Teacher’, much before a scientist, a writer, or a former President of India.

Often he would ask me, “You are young, decide what will like to be remembered for?” I kept thinking of new impressive answers, till one day I gave up and resorted to tit-for-tat. I asked him back, “First you tell me, what will you like to be remembered for? President, Scientist, Writer, Missile man, India 2020, Target 3 billion…. What?” I thought I had made the question easier by giving options, but he sprang on me a surprise. “Teacher”, he said.

You are indeed a teacher Sir. Even your last day has taught us much – compassion, concern, positivity, determination, and an indomitable spirit to see India progress and develop.

Keep inspiring sir, and keep igniting our minds.

We, the people of India,
Your students.

Memories of Kargil war from my School Diary

Rahul Raj
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Memories of Kargil war from my School Diary

When I was 10 years old, I was admitted to a boarding school – 170 km away from my home, inside decently vegetated and sparsely populated valleys, established in a place which is still more famous for its phonetics and appearances in Vividh Bharti announcements than anything else.

Even now, whenever I think of my school, the first few pictorial flashbacks remain the same as I had when I went on my first school vacation – a huge white gate over which “Sainik School Tilaiya” was written, two small cannons kept beside the gate, a defunct blue-coloured fighter plane inside a park, students running in colourful red, blue, orange, green shirt in the morning in a weird haircut, and a stone in the middle of the school over which was called “Immortal Tilaiyans”.

 

Immortal Tilaiyans
Immortal Tilaiyans

As a 10 year kid, I could only associate martyrs with essays, history quizzes, movies and songs sung on 15th August or 26th January. I read names of school alumni who died in Operation Blue Star, Operation Pawan and other similar combats. My first reactions after watching the stone were more bookish and pedantic than real.

Every morning, the whole school had to run as unit formations and perform physical training. Subedars from the Indian Army were specially assigned to the school for 2-3 three years to train us. These subedars were people with low emotions; they rarely talked about anything apart from running or sports. After serving for 2-3 years, they were transferred back to borders. We got a funny, but strict subedar when I was in class 7th. I was a super lazy undisciplined kid, so my frequency to encounter him and get punished was high. Even though we were punished by him, we used to joke with him during sports time. My schoolmates kept funny nickname for him which we used to shout during morning run while crossing him.

He was okay with our mass hooting, he knew how to deal with hooliganism. I faintly remember when was he transferred and we got a new subedar as our PT instructor, but I clearly remember returning to school after the vacation of 1999. My friend told be that Subedar ji is killed in Kargil, he was shot in his head.

The next time I passed “Immortal Tilaiyans”, I read it again. It says, “When you go home, tell them of us and say, “For your tomorrow, we gave our today”

PS: This post was published last year on my facebook page, but my sentiments are still the same 🙂

Sreenivasan Jain edits embarrassing portions from Ramdev’s interview

Gaurav
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Sreenivasan Jain edits embarrassing portions from Ramdev’s interview

We had written last week how journalist Sreenivasan Jain had gone overboard in defending corruption in his last truth vs hype show. In the same show, he had also made attacks on Baba Ramdev for speaking at IIT Delhi, and for partnering with it on the Unnat Bharat program. Subsequently, he was schooled by Baba Ramdev on twitter, who later invited him for an open debate on science. Jain took up the challenge and decided to interview Baba. But little did he know, he had fallen into a trap.

Jain conducted the interview, and then presented a heavily edited, cut and spliced version of the same, after adding his biased spins. But Ramdev Baba had an ace up his sleeve. He had recorded the entire interview separately, and uploaded the full interview, unedited, taken in one shot, on Youtube. Even a NDTV journalist fool would realise Jain has massively distorted Baba’s views by watching both the videos, but we will make it even clearer with a detailed dissection.

The first distortion is in the title itself, which quotes Baba as saying ‘I Am a Scientist Baba’. Fact is, Baba Ramdev never called himself a “scientist”, he only said he is “scientific” in his methods. By purposely changing this small word, Jain tried to create an impression that Ramdev, who is not trained to be a scientist, is calling himself a scientist.

Next, Jain comes to the main question: Many Swamis and other religious institutions, including Ramdev’s Patanjali have been involved with Unnat Bharat and have partnered with IIT. What is the connection of such organizations with rural technology of IITs?

To this question, there are two answers. One, which Sreenivasan Jain showed, after cut-pasting various segments. And second, what Ramdev actually said:

Ramdev’s edited reply as shown by NDTV: Firstly, I am not a spokesman for anybody else. I can speak for myself. Firstly, English media have a misconception that sadhus have no connection with science. (cut) I was born itself in the family of a uneducated farmer. And we have mixed science with Yoga (cut) You were harping on cow, saffron, baba, with a big red circle around the “baba”. I am a frank baba, and scientific baba, and I sleep on the floor, and I have a dream that India should progress.

Edits Explained: The portion after the first cut, was  actually in response to a totally different question, but Sreenivasan Jain deliberately put it here. The part after the second cut, is from the last few minutes of the interview, where Ramdev, after placing all facts, attacked Jain’s blind biases.

What Ramdev actually said: (continued from before the first cut) Ramdev reveals that more than 100 scientists work with him. He had called them for the interview but they did not come. He further said they are working in botany, agriculture, animal industry, food. They are also working on economic measures which will help farmers in the village.

Then Jain says: “So you say you have been working with farmers for quite some time?”. That is when Ramdev said the part about being born in the family of a farmer. Further Ramdev explained that they have worked in thousands of villages, where they increased income of farmers, helped with de-addiction, helped cows which were affected by high urea, thus helping farmers. He also said they are the first in the country to develop a urea-free animal food. He also mentioned the 1000 acre farm they have, where without urea and other chemicals, they have managed to produce 1.5 times to 2 times the normal output, and where the cost is only Rs 4000 per acre, as against the standard Rs 4000 (edit) 12000 per acre.

Why doesn’t Jain show all this? Simple, it will prove that Sreenivasan is a poorly researched liar masquerading as a journalist with facts. Ramdev completely exposes Jain’s ignorance about his work, which is exactly the “rural technology” which is needed for a scheme like Unnat Bharat.

Next in Sreenivasan’s deliberately edited video, he abruptly says “but what has this got to do with IIT?”, once again omitting some portion before this sentence. Before this sentence, Ramdev says he has started the world’s biggest herbal food park, and made it a profitable venture. He further elaborates that it generates direct employment for over 1 lakh people. Again, an achievement of Ramdev in the field of “Rural technology” which embarrassed Jain and hence was not shown.

Later, Jain asks some political questions. And this is where NDTV’s editor should win an Oscar for editing because the sheer skulduggery employed by Sreenivasan Jain here is unbelievable. Mind you, Jain is the same guy who won “Journalist of the year award” recently, so you can imagine the deplorable levels of journalism in India, if a first grade liar gets this award. First, let us see what actually happened, as per the unedited interview:

1. (Jain Question 1): The state of farmers is quite poor, other people are also troubled, Modi Government has completed one year, are you satisfied with the running of the Government?

2. (Ramdev Answer 1):  Modi has started well, some of his schemes may take 1, 2 or 5 years to show results. He is involved in nation-building programmes, not vote-bank building programmes. He wants to take India ahead, and is trying with honesty and hard-work. He works for 18-20 hours a day. But he must also start work which creates vote-banks (i.e. for the backward and downtrodden people).

3. (Jain Question 2): Vyapam has come forward, Vasundhara Raje’s and Sushma Swaraj’s issues have come, many Maharashtra Government ministers are accused of scandals. Don’t you think BJP’s image is changing because of these scams, and Modi is silent on all of this?

4. (Ramdev Answer 2): I had supported Modi. You can see my tapes from before, I have said, without Modi, BJP is nothing. I am not a BJP spokesperson, I am self made, I am not BJP’s baba. (Now Sreenivasan Jain probes baba repeatedly, and asks him to comment on Modi’s silence. Ramdev avoids for a long time, and finally replies) From my side, no comments. We should comment, only when the matter is more clear. Scams should not happen, and scamsters are the enemies of the entire country. Till things are not clear, making premature statements is not correct. I don’t want to get into a new controversy.

Now what award-winning journalist Sreenivasan Jain does is, shows his first question, and then shows Ramdev’s second answer! He completely deletes the first answer which was on how Modi’s Government has performed, and instead shows the answer which relates to the various scams. This is the depth Sreenivasan Jain goes to perpetuate his propaganda and save himself after he has been thoroughly exposed. Maybe he did so because there was no chance of “hitting the bar” with Ramdev.

Jain also omitted another part of the interview, where Ramdev schooled him again

“I have been to IIM also and many IITs are calling me even now, but I haven’t been able to give them time. I have been to AIIMS also, that too during UPA time, on the invitation of Ghulam Nabi Azad, and the doctors there who heard me said that they got to learn somethings from me. I agree many babas have many scams, but such people are present in media, in politics, hence people should think before making statements.”

Sreenivasan Jain, has been regularly exposed by us, his hilarious show on Jan Dhan Yojana, and his brazen defence of the corrupt. But it is a shame that such fraudulent journalists still command prime-time shows in India.

Why Criminal Defamation, a relic of colonial era, must go

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Why Criminal Defamation, a relic of colonial era, must go

The timeless wisdom of the ancient Indian mantra Satyameva Jayate found  in Mundaka Upanishad and meaning “Truth Alone Triumphs” was adopted as the National Motto of India. But truth is often unpalatable to those in power and thus a decision was taken to retain S.499, S.500 of the Macaulay Code to control natives, also known as Indian Penal Code, 1860. These sections on Criminal Defamation enacted in year 1860, penalise even “Truth” unless it is in “Public Good” whatever that imprecise, vague, pro-British colonial/Government policy term may mean. The aim of English masters to fetter truth by “Public Good” was to completely restrict freedom of speech as anything critical of the Imperial British power.

The purpose of not following the national motto in criminal law, even after independence is simple, it is done to restrict free speech, as a person even though he may speak the truth, he may still have to face a criminal trial to prove  his truthful statement was in “Public Good” or “Good Faith”. During such a trial the person will be referred to as accused with all its resultant stigma, quite apart from the hardship and expenses of criminal trial, and thus citizens knowing the consequences, will prudently decide not to speak freely.

Comparisons are odious, yet oddly informative. It makes a stark study in contrast to observe how politicians enacted constitutional amendments in the USA and India after coming to power. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the US, states- “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press”. Thus by the first amendment, the Government recognized the fundamental right of citizens to free speech and that no law shall abridge it. In India unfortunately the First Amendment to Constitution did the opposite, it severely restricted right to free speech recognized by Article 19 (1) (a) by adding Article 19(2) which retained the existing law i.e. Criminal Defamation and also gave further power to make laws to restrict Free Speech on various grounds.

Thus while American Government after coming to power gave Free Speech rights, by its first amendment, The Indian Government by its very first amendment, decided to restrict Freedom of Speech. In these first amendments lies the destiny of citizenry right to free speech.

This tendency in Indian Politicians to suppress the voice of people after assuming power was not restricted to the past, it is alive even now as was evidenced from recent circular of AAP Government to file Criminal Defamation cases, to supress voices and scare people from sharing opinion. It was stayed by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, which took a dim view of the hypocrisy of the situation where on one hand Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal took shelter under Dr Subramanian Swamy’s petition to quash Criminal Defamation law and on other hand issued a circular to file Criminal Defamation cases on others. Later AAP Government withdrew the circular, though this writer will not be surprised if in case the Supreme Court does not strike down the law, such a circular may be issued again.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court in recent years has usually given a liberal interpretation to the fundamental rights of citizens. This was necessary to curb the Government’s desire to restrict peoples’ right and control them. By the first amendment which brought Art 19 (2) into the Constitution, the Government got power to restrict freedom of speech. The language of Art 19(2) had term “reasonable restrictions….on freedom of Speech”, The court considered the phrase “reasonable restrictions” which prefaces Government powers in Article 19 (2) to make laws to restrict speech to be of importance, and has interpreted it to mean that the law has to be “reasonable”. Many jurisdictions consider laws restricting basic freedoms reasonable only if they  do not unduly restrict the freedom sought to be restricted. Such “restrictions” have direct nexus with an important aim sought to be achieved and other effective alternatives are not available.

Further as Criminal Defamation has penal consequences it’s important to keep in mind that under Article 21 “Protection of life and personal liberty”- No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law. The word ”law” used in Article 21 is of utmost importance as Supreme Court has interpreted it to mean law which is “Just, Fair and Reasonable” and not any arbitrary or capricious law.

Based on above parameters of interpretation of fundamental rights as evolved by SC S.499 has to be declared unconstitutional on various grounds amongst which some in brief are-

1) Any law in which a person can be sent to jail even though he spoke only the truth is not Just, Fair or Reasonable and violates Fundamental Rights

2) Sarcasm, Irony can also be defamation. The very purpose of sarcasm, irony is often exaggeration to highlight a point, frequently used by cartoonist, comedians and various people in public life. To consider it defamation will have “Chilling Effect” on public debate vital in a democracy.

3) S.499 criminalizes making imputations against a company or association, e.g. of doing corruption, environmental damage, malpractices etc. Thus for allegedly harming reputation of a financial/legal entity by words, a person can be sent to jail, which is violative of Art 19, 21 as recourse to financial loss of reputation for a company cannot be jail for a human being. It can only be civil damages.

Beyond this there are various other grounds including International Treaties, S 199(2) of CRPC, and arguments on interplay of fundamental rights which have been taken up in Supreme Court but due to space constraints not being set out here.

In western countries including America, laws have been passed restricting even civil suits of damages as they were being used by rich, powerful, influential individuals and corporations to stifle free speech by bringing – Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation called (SLAPP). Under this type of legal action the aim is to  frighten and silence critics due to costs of mounting a legal defence by them. This goes on until the defendant decides to abandon criticism or opposition and thus restricts their right to free speech.

In India unfortunately mere speech without any physical action still has criminal consequences and can land you in jail. In order for citizens to regain freedom including of speech for which freedom fighters fought, which the Constituent Assembly recognized, which was enshrined in the original Constitution and which was taken away by the very first amendment it is essential that the challenge mounted in the Supreme Court in Subramanian Swamy Vs Union of India succeeds.

By- Ishkaran Singh Bhandari

Disclaimer- Author of this article is assisting Dr Subramanian Swamy in the Constitutional Challenge to abolish Criminal Defamation. The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. OpIndia.com is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this article. All information is provided on an as-is basis. The information, facts or opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OpIndia.com and OpIndia.com does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.

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